Women’s Rights, Just a Thing From the Past?

Throughout America’s history one group has constantly been denied their equal rights. From years past to modern times women have not been able to endure the equality that they deserve. In our modern world, America has the least amount of equality towards opportunity out of all the other advanced industrialized countries in the world . While many believe that equality has been reached in today’s world women that earned As in school get paid the same amount of men that earned Cs, showing one part of the blatant inequality that still exists for women in America and across the world. Women's rights violations may seem like a thing of the past, but are still a major social issue like it has been throughout history.

The 50’s were seen as one of the greatest times in American history. World War II was over and soldiers returned home to their loved ones. Women, who had taken over jobs in the men’s absence were now being forced back home to take care of children. Even though in 1957, 70% of working women held office positions, assembly lines or service jobs, 12 % held a profession and 6% held management positions and those that held professional jobs worked as nurses and teachers. Women of the 50’s also left college, or took classes that would prepare them for the homelife. Women of that time were groomed to be silent, pretty, oblivious, and a great cook. Wives were taught to pretend to know nothing if their husband was having an affair, and that their husband was the boss of them The character Daisy Buchanan from the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, famously said, “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” in relation to her husband off having an affair during the birth of their daughter.

In modern times women are not able to hold high as many high position jobs as men because it is believed that they can either have a family or have a career, not both.Today’s families are increasingly reliant upon working mothers as breadwinners or co-breadwinner. It is widely thought that businesses run by women don’t even succeed as much as those run by the opposite sex, and are a tiny, low impact, market in the economy. The Center for Women’s Business Research has instead found differently, “the significance of the total amount of economic impact [of businesses owned by women] – $2.86 trillion – once again proves that women-owned firms are not a small, niche market but are a major contributor and player in the overall economy,” . Women today face a bias that has been set into the minds of people for decades, similar to those against minorities. But women make up approximately 51% of the global population, so why are they faced with such obvious discrimination? In a recent study done by Georgetown University women were some of the least likely to receive responses to emails as potential doctoral candidates asking to discuss research opportunities with a professor. “‘We found that faculty ignored requests from women and minorities at a higher rate than requests from White males, particularly in higher-paying disciplines and private institutions,’” Katherine Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania,” . These startling results show the bias that women have to face each day.

Even though statistics, and research show that women running businesses have great success, women are still paid less. Women earn, on average, just 77 cents for every dollar that men earn, and this gap hasn’t budged in more than a decade. Women of color are affected even more by it. According to “A Woman’s Agenda for the 21st Century” Latinas earn 90 percent of what Latinos earn and about half of what white men earn. African American women also earn just 90 percent of what African American men earn and 69 percent of what white men earn. . This shows that women are not held at the same caliber as men to where they can’t even make the same amount of money as a man. Not being paid the same amount as a man, makes it difficult for women to obtain the same future as a man. How can America be considered the land of opportunity when at least half of the population is paid less than the other half, just because they have two X chromosomes? Women may have been able to overcome oppression in the workplace, but treating them like subordinates instead of equals, when it comes to salary, will get America nowhere in the future.

Throughout this nation’s history equality has been something sought after by many groups of people. One of the most vocal for this action includes the majority of citizens, the women. Even though women make their voices heard, equality is a battle they have been fighting for since the late 1800s beginning with the right to vote. and continuing to the right to have a say in whether or not they get pregnant. But the battle for women’s rights is not over yet.